Demarest: Why don't you two talk about why you started doing the project? What were your motives?
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Stephanie: My first motive was running. I knew I was going to be running in all of those Races for the Cure, and I wanted to send each race kind of like a press packet or a press kit. So at the Christmas party last December, I approached Charlee and asked her if she would be willing to do a few press-type photos for me. And she said "sure."
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Charlee: You came over a couple of months later and we started doing the shoot. Stephanie: With the New Balance hat and the t-shirts. Charlee: Then Stephanie said, "Do you want to see the scars?" Her eyes turned quite serious -- the eyes were no longer talking. It was almost as though I wasn't there anymore. These were probably the most direct photographs we've done in all our sessions.
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Stephanie: In fact, I rather dislike these direct photos because to me
they're very reminiscent of the Matuschka style -- in your face. Matuschka
makes a very political statement, and there's a place for that. But I want to
make an emotional statement. Matuschka's approach is very shocking to the
viewer. I want to involve or engage the viewer in a very personal way rather
than in a confrontative way. And to me, these images of my bare chest are very confrontative. Charlee: I agree. They're also very clinical. I chose to cut the eyes off here almost to depersonalize it more. Like it's not an individual.
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Stephanie: These others of me -- the "Venus images" -- are personal. They are an image of how beautiful my body is. The confrontative images don't seem beautiful to me.
Charlee: In the Venus series, we thought about Stephanie doing a complete turn in front of the camera. So these could be a long sequence of images. This project is a complex one. I want to try to do many different kinds of photographs. This might be a collage, there might be hand-colored photos. I'm using different techniques. More than any other project I've ever worked on, I really want a voice -- this person -- to come out. I want people to think about you and your situation. Especially women -- make them think about themselves.
Stephanie: I hope so.
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Cancer Destroys Photo Essay Collaborators Reactions |
Photographs copyright Charlee Brodsky 1996. Text copyright Stephanie Byram 1996. All rights reserved.
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